Experimental art—in Korean, silheom misul—emerged in South Korea during a turbulent time. North Korea’s bloody invasion, which launched the Korean War in 1950, ended in stalemate in 1953. In South Korea, after the war ended, young artists began rejecting prevailing forms, such as abstract painting, and turned instead to assemblage, installations, and conceptual work that used found materials. Barbed wire. Neon. When the 1970s became more politically fraught, and artists were closely surveilled and even tortured, much work was lost. This riveting display focuses on the exceptional artistic output of South Korea’s earlier postwar decades. —Elena Clavarino